kids
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April Showers
I have said my farewells to my eldest daughter and her lovely husband, as well as our German exchange student daughter (from 2011) and their friend from New York, all gone from here yesterday and flying out of SFO today and tomorrow. The house is quiet and empty. It is good to feel I can get to work again, and start to plant my tomatoes and lavender, and hear my own thoughts. I did a yoga routine this morning, first time since my surgery in January. I’m throwing sheets into the wash, filling the dishwasher full with the last of our last supper dishes, making a shopping list, thinking about what…
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Latest Vision
My apologies for the long silence. When last I wrote here, we had moved to the country and my husband was seriously disabled by his back injuries; he retired and we left the busy East Bay for Wine Country-quiet. I have been working on several projects in that time, namely my historical novel about the Orphan Train mama who lost her children and set about getting them back. That novel is in revisions and needs another deep dive. (Not this week, she said, juggling several pins, but one of these days soon.) Another sideline has been our cabin, the Crow’s Nest, which we renovated from the studs out, and welcomed…
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Slingshot: This Is Not Where I’m Supposed to Be
I waken at about 1 a.m. and stare at the wall, trying not to look at the clock, its white number so stark, so painfully truthful. It’s past midnight. Hours loom before me. You’re not asleep. This is not your house. This is not your bed. Those are not your children down the hall. There are no children down the hall. No sighs, no whimpers, no calls for a sip of water. The girls are in their own beds, in the next town. Their father is the gatekeeper. The divorce is not going well and he has decided to keep them all, against their will, against mine, to make…
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Epiphanies-R-Us
(This column first ran in July 2007, right before I became a Mrs. again.) I drove up to the home county of Sonoma a few weeks ago to pick up one of our girls from a visit to her grandparents. I had some time to spare (shocking but true) and wanted some quality time with my parents, so I hung around for a while. I picked some plums with my mom and she gave me some geranium and penstemon cuttings for the garden. I gave my parents their wedding invitation and I got to see the latest quilts that she was planning to show at the county fair. We talked…
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Writer as Middle Child: It’s a Thing.
My friend Jack Mingo says that writers are middle children who just want to speak uninterrupted. He may be right. I’m a middle child. Can’t you tell? I’m one of five children. Our mom developed a color code to keep us organized, and that was the color of your beach towel, your swim bag, your cardigan, your home-sewn dress. My elder sister was blue; my younger sister was purple. I was red. (I still am.) My brothers were both green, or else one was green and one was light blue. But my mom had it down, and that’s all that mattered. We lived in three- and four-bedroom homes, and if…
